January 22, 2009

Know the Truth
Joyce Meyer, Daily Devotionals

January 23

Jesus said] If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples. And You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.
— John 8:31B-32

In my book Battlefield of the Mind, I also write about Mary’s husband, John, a low-key type person. He was a man who had been verbally abused by his mother and taunted by playmates in childhood. He hated confrontation and couldn’t stand up to Mary’s strong will. In his own way, John was as much a prisoner as his wife. He blamed her; she blamed him—and here we see Satan’s deceptive ways again.

John was convinced that it didn’t do any good to stand up to anyone; he was going to lose anyway. He thought the only way to get along was to be quiet and accept whatever happened.

John also believed another lie of the devil—that he wasn’t truly loved by God. How could he be? He wasn’t worth loving. Because he felt that way, he had believed the devil’s lies. “I felt as if God said to the world, ‘Believe in Jesus and you’ll be saved.’ I got in on some kind of package deal—but I never felt I was worth loving.”

That is one of Satan’s biggest lies: “You are nobody. You are not worth anything.” If the enemy of your mind can convince you that you’re too bad or too worthless, he has set up a stronghold in your mind.

Although John was a Christian, his mind had been imprisoned by his enemy. John has had to learn that he is important to God. For a long time, he did not know the truth. His mother had not told him that he was good, worthwhile, and a child of God. His friends didn’t encourage him, and in the first years of marriage to Mary, her criticism convinced him even further that he was a hopeless failure.

John needs to know that he is loved, and that he is as valuable to the kingdom of God as Paul, Moses, or anybody else. Jesus cares for him, and He is with him. For John to win his battle and cast down the mental strongholds the devil has built, he needs to know the truth. Jesus said, “If you . . . [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:31b–32). John learns truth as he reads God’s Word, prays, and meditates on what it says to him. He also learns as he applies God’s Word in his daily life and has the experience of watching it work as Jesus said it would. Experience is often the best teacher. I have learned from the Word of God and life’s experiences that God’s Word is filled with power and will tear down the strongholds Satan has built in our minds.

You cannot be free unless you know that the weapons of warfare are available to you and that you can learn to use them. As you learn to resist Satan and call him a liar, your life will change dramatically for the better.

Pray this...

Lord God of heaven, remind me that I am important to You and that I am loved by You, even if I don’t feel loved. Help me to learn that I am as important to You as any other Christian and that You love me as much as You love them. I thank You in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.


From the book Battlefield of the Mind: 100 Insights That Will Change the Way You Think by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2005 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.